Commissioner’s Comments on 2020 Game Schedule
Since the 2020 Greenville Little Leagues’ game schedule was just released I figured it was time for me to weigh in with my thoughts. First off, please understand there is not a lot of information of substance to follow. If you read this in its entirety you will lose five or so minutes of your life that you will never get back. So, now that I got that off of my chest, you may read on if you so choose to.
Game one of the season on Friday, April 10 is a rematch of the 2017 City Championship Series as Physicians East will take on East Carolina Auto & Truck Center who are the defending City Champions. This is PE’s third opening night appearance in four years which is rather amazing since the schedule is done by a blind draw. Our most notable opening day (Saturday, April 11) matchup is the Carolina Windows & Doors vs. Ross Orthodontics matchup. Why is this notable you ask? These two teams were the last two expansion teams in our program as each made their debut in 1989 as Fickling Insurance (now CWD) and Aldridge & Southerland (now Ross) respectively. Each team is beginning their 32nd season of play in their respective leagues.
As we move through the schedule we see the first true night game of the season on Friday, April 17 as RE/MAX takes on Optimist. This is a rematch of the 2018 City Championship. Our second weekend of the season also features two of our “same color” matchups. On Friday, April 17 Brown & Wood takes on C&C Stoneworks in a matchup of our two Columbia blue teams. The next day EC Auto plays Ross Orthodontics in a matchup of our two kelly green teams. That Saturday, that concludes the first week of the season, is our “Matinee Saturday” which for the past several years has seen games scheduled for 12 noon and 2 pm. This day is a sort of salute to the days when nearly half of the Little League games were played on Saturday and start times were at 12, 2, and 4.
Our first “league matchup” of the year will be a battle between Carolina Windows & Doors and East Carolina Auto & Truck Center. This will take place on Wednesday, May 6 and it is the only day of the year that features both league play and interleague play.
The Annual Luncheon Supper sees Coke playing Ross and the Lions playing C&C Stoneworks.
Teams that wear the same colors facing each other are not my favorite thing to see. With the number of teams that we have and the number of colors that are popular among sponsors it is inevitable of course that we have teams that wear the same colors. At the beginning of my time with the program many of the teams wore white. In North State, Optimist (royal and gold trim), Aldridge & Southerland (kelly and gold trim), Eveready Battery (red and black trim) all wore white jerseys. In Tar Heel, Fickling Insurance (royal and gold trim) and Pepsi Cola both wore white First Federal then joined them as an all white clad team when they became BB&T (maroon trim). So, at one time 5 or 6 of the 16 teams wore white. In 2020 we get rid of two of those matchups at the end of the first week of the season (specific matchups were listed earlier in this post). On April 27 Kiwanis and RE/MAX meet in a battle of black jerseyed teams. In league play each league has one same color matchup. Overton’s and PE play on May 21 and June 3 while the “Mother’s Laundry Nightmare Game” (white on white) between Eastern Plumbing and Pepsi Cola on May 29 and June 13.
Other favorite matchups of mine are the “Reciprocal Game” between Physicians East and Eastern Plumbing which is scheduled for April 21. Ironically enough the “Cola Wars” between Pepsi and Coke takes place the same day.
The City Championship rematch between EC Auto & Overton’s will be played on April 24 as the first of two games at Elm Street. The second game that night is a rematch of the 2015 City Championship as Ross takes on BB&T.
Our four Memorial Day games at Elm Street are (in order) Jarman vs. Eastern Plumbing, Carolina Windows & Doors vs. Pepsi, Lions vs. Overton’s, and Coke vs. Kiwanis.
The last game of the season is between Eastern Plumbing and EC Auto. The way the schedule works is that there is always one team (this year EC Auto) that plays the first and the last game of the season. So in between EC Auto’s first and last game all of the other teams play 22 games.
The regular season championship races often times boil down to which 3 teams you are paired with in your three game weeks. In North State, Lions, Coke, Ross and C&C are in one group while the other group is made up of PE, Optimist, Kiwanis and Overton’s. In Tar Heel the first group is made up of Jarman, Eastern Plumbing, Carolina Windows & Doors and Pepsi and the second group is EC Auto, RE/MAX, BB&T, and Brown & Wood. The pennant races for the North State and Tar Heel titles often take wild swings during that four week period as pitching staffs are thin during that time leading to upsets on occasion.
If you made it this far I hope you enjoyed reading the “Commissioner’s Comments on the 2020 Game Schedule”. Hopefully you gained some insight in to the schedule but really all you can probably say is that you are 5 minutes older.